Forms are commonly used to gather information. They are used in a myriad of applications, e.g., when filing tax returns, when making an online purchase using a credit card, when answering a questionnaire, etc. Forms simplify the process of providing information because forms may present users with instructions on what information should be provided in the appropriate spaces, and may also present users with a multitude of options from which they can conveniently select, for example, as a series of checkboxes. In recent years, with the proliferation of computers, electronic documents and Internet use, use of electronic forms has become wide-spread.
However, while forms, including electronic forms, make it easier for users to provide information, they present certain problems for those who read user-filled forms. User-filled forms often present information very densely to readers. Selected options are presented amongst unselected options. Filled sections of the form are presented along with unfilled sections of the form that may not be applicable to the particular user who filled the form. Readers are confronted with the problem of scanning the form to locate user-filled data. This problem may be especially difficult when readers deal with electronic forms, as user-filled data is not hand-written, and thus cannot be distinguished from printed form text on that basis. To the contrary, in an electronic form, user-filled data and form text may be presented to the reader in the same print, font face, etc. Readers may thus miss user-filled data when reading the form. These problems may be particularly severe when electronic forms are used in a hospital, a setting in which successful medical treatment routinely depends on user-filled data being read completely and accurately.
In a hospital, patients receive treatments (blood tests, medications, diagnostic tests, procedures, etc.) by way of a practitioner's orders carried out by hospital staff. Historically, those orders were hand-written by the practitioner.
Hand-writing orders requires the practitioner to remember all of the appropriate tests, medications and treatment options, the right sequence of steps, the right drug among many similarly named options, and to write legibly. This is a challenging task because each patient typically has many conditions that need to be addressed, there are thousands of medical conditions the doctor must remember, and patients can often need many orders to receive all the care required. Furthermore, modern medical knowledge is constantly evolving.
Many hospitals now use order sets instead of hand-written orders. Order sets are pre-defined forms that specify all the up-to-date treatment options, in a standardized format, from which the practitioner may select. For any given diagnosis, a form exists that provides predefined treatment checklists, allowing the practitioner to simply select the treatments being ordered for the patient. The form may also allow the practitioner to enter textual instructions for more clarity, as needed. Order sets may be generated in or converted to electronic format, which can then be printed out in hard copy or provided electronically to hospital staff for execution.
One drawback of order sets, however, is that information is presented very densely to hospital staff. This density arises in part because a completed order set contains both selected and unselected treatment options, form text providing descriptive content to those treatment options, as well as any textual instructions entered by the practitioner. The inclusion of unselected treatment options provides valuable context for hospital staff and other practitioners, but their presence may cause hospital staff to miss selected treatment options and textual instructions from the practitioner, thereby creating risk to patient safety.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods and software for improving visibility of user-filled data in an electronic form.